The South Coast of Papua

Kal Muller

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!is volume is the third in our series on Papua. !e "rst two were Introducing Papua and !e Highlands of Papua. !ere are two more volumes planned: !e North Coast of Papua and !e Bird’s Head of Papua. !e main purpose of these books is to give Papuans, especially students, a compact summary of the history and culture of their homeland. To this end, all the books in the series are available in Indonesian. !e English version of these books is meant for whoever is interested in Papua. While the western shores of the south coast had centuries-old trading contacts with the rest of Indonesia, elsewere was little known to outsiders until the 20th century. !e "rst Dutch government outpost was established in Merauke in the early 1900s, while the Asmat was the last major ethnic group brought under government control in the 1950s. Aside from the colonial government, the Roman Catholic Church also brought modern education, health services along with its faith to the south coast. !e South Coast of Papua gives a brief overview of the history of the area, and then covers most of the major ethnic groups. Most of the information comes from sources published in English about the various language groups. !is book is de"nitely not a complete volume about all the di#erent ethnic groups found in the area. Far more research needs to be done for a complete picture, especially as many of the ancient traditions are fading from memory. We hope that some Papuan author will tackle this subject and improve on its scope and quality.!e publication of the book was made possible through the generous contribution of the Lembaga Pengembangan Masyarakat Amungme Kamoro and Freeport Indonesia.

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THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA

159THE KAMORO

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Kamoro

!e Kamoro live on a 300-kilometer stretch of the south coast, between the Otakwa River and Etna Bay, at the western geographical limit of what we cover in this volume. Starting at Etna Bay in the west, their territory reaches just beyond Timika in the east. !e group holds some 18,000 individu-als, scattered among some 40 villages. Most of these villages are located on the coast, with a dozen found inland where the mountains are further from the Arafura Sea. !e Kamoro lan-guage has six mutually understandable dialects. It is part of the Kamoro-Asmat language family that also includes the Sem-pan. Sometimes the three eastern Sempan villages are included with the Kamoro. !e Kamoro did not attract much attention until the early

1970s when the giant international mining company, Freeport Indonesia, built its basic infrastructure. Its main port, Amama-pare, as well as the landing strip at what is now Timika town, were built on the eastern portion of Kamoro-owned traditional land. !is also applies to the lowlands section of the road that the company built from the Arafura Sea to the base of the

160 THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA

high central mountains. !e Amungme, who live just to the north of the Kamoro, claim all the land to where the stones stop in the Ajkwa River, with considerable overlap with what the Kamoro consider theirs. In the old days, this overlap area was a no-man’s land, with some hunting done by both groups. With the Freeport infrastructure and the towns of Timika and Kuala Kencana, this land has become extremely valuable. Non-Papuans now own a considerable proportion of this land that the central government had claimed as state-owned.

SOURCES FOR KAMORO HISTORY AND ETHNOGRAPHYPrior to the arrival of Europeans to Papua, there are no reliable records about the Kamoro: only myths and legends. !en we have some frustratingly brief glimpses of the Kamoro from early Dutch sources. !ese are best summarized in Dr. Jan Pouwer’s doctoral dissertation. Lt. Kol" in a ship called ‘Dourga’ surveyed some of the Kam-

oro coast in 1826, with the account of his voyage published in Dutch and English. Dr. Solomon Muller, who traveled to the south Papuan coast in 1828, published a much better account (in Dutch only) of the Kamoro in 1857. His data included the Kamoro material culture, clothing, ornamentation, weapons and trade. Far more complete information on the Kamoro comes from

the 1912/1913 British Ornithological Union’s expedition that attempted to climb the highest inland snow-covered peaks. During the 15-month duration of the expedition (that failed to reach anywhere close to the snow peaks), their base camp was located close to the current village of Kokonau. Two

161THE KAMORO

members of the team, Wollaston and Rawlings, wrote separate books about the expedition, with #rst-hand observations about the Kamoro. After the opening of a government outpost in Kokonau in

1925, the Catholic Church established a mission at the same location in 1927. Unlike other south coast groups, none of the Roman Catholic priests wrote any early accounts of Kamoro. After World War II, the indefatigable linguist, Father Drabbe, wrote down Kamoro legends, now available in Kamoro, Indo-nesian and in English. A short while later, Father Zegwaard also gathered Kamoro myths. Many of these myths were pub-lished in a book called Amoko in 2002, with an excellent intro-ductory overview. Father Coenen gathered myths and wrote about the spiritual culture of the Kamoro, but his texts were not published.

!e highest mountain in New Guinea, Nemangkawi Ninggok or Puncak Jaya, can be seen from the coastal Kamoro area on a clear day.


We owe Dr. Jan Pouwer the #rst thorough account of this group. As a government anthropologist, Dr. Pouwer lived for two years with the Kamoro in the early 1950s and learned to speak their language. His doctoral dissertation was published in Dutch as a book and he also wrote many articles about them. He is the best, the most reliable and the most complete author who had written about the Kamoro. Much of the material be-low comes from his publications. !e presence of Freeport began to attract a degree of atten-

tion to the Kamoro. A young American anthropologist, Todd Harple, worked for Freeport and gathered material on the Ka-moro through interviews without leaving Freeport housing to spend time in any of the villages. After the company terminat-

Kamoro villages are always located on or near water. It is only in the area of Timika that road exist in Kamoro-land.

163THE KAMORO

ed his employment, he wrote a dissertation to obtain his PhD in 2000 at the Australian National University: Controlling the Dragon: An ethno-historical analysis of the Kamoro of Southwest New Guinea. !en starting in 1998, thanks to Freeport spon-sorship, the author of this book organized a series of yearly Kamoro festivals that began a serious revival of Kamoro carv-ings and some traditional practices. A Belgian anthropologist, Karen Jacobs, attended several of these festivals and wrote her 2003 doctoral dissertation on the history of collecting Kamoro art: Collecting Kamoro.

EARLY KAMORO CONTACTS WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD!e Kamoro probably #rst arrived in their present homeland from the east. !eir language and culture resembles that of the Asmat and there are legends of migration from the east to the west. Some evidence from linguistics and art styles point to a possible migration from the north coast of New Guinea. !is could be either the area of Lake Sentani or the Sepik River. But there is no #rm evidence for these possible places of origin for the Kamoro. !e Kamoros’ #rst contact with the outside world was with

traders from eastern Indonesia, perhaps over 1,000 years ago. !ere are no reliable written records concerning Papua before the arrival of the #rst Europeans in the Moluccas, with the possible exception of a document called Negarakertagama, dated 1365, from the Majapahit Empire centered in East Java. Before the arrival of Europeans, the western part of the Kam-oro area was the south-easternmost extremity of a commercial network that connected the southwest coast of New Guinea


with Eastern Indonesia. !e westernmost extension of this trade network stopped at Lakahia Island, at the entrance to Etna Bay. !e main item traded by the (Westernmost) Kamoro was

the bark of the massoy tree. !e oil from the bark is used in folk medicines and such as various Javanese ‘jamu’, cosmet-ics, perfumes, food $avoring and dye #xing as in the batik in-dustry. Perhaps the Kamoro sold slaves as well, or some were simply captured by the traders from the west, based in Seram Island and some small islands to the southeast of it. !e trad-ers brought metal items and cloth to the edge of the Kamoro area. In 1623 the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) govern-

ment in Ambon sent captain Jan Carstensz to investigate the trade possibilities of the coast of southwest Papua. At the settlement of Mupuruka, the Kamoro, for reasons unknown, killed ten of his men. Perhaps previous visitor or traders had killed some Kamoro? Or the Dutch had cut down trees with-out permission? Due to this most unfriendly reception, plus other hostile encounters, the Europeans gave up exploration and trading in the area for two centuries. Commerce was left to Muslim merchants from Seram.

EVENTS SINCE THE 1850SBy the middle of the 1800s, with Dutch backing, the trade monopolies of the Seram traders became seriously threatened by the Sultan of Tidore. He sent out ‘hongi’ expeditions, large canoes #lled with armed men to obtain forced tribute. While most of these raids were directed at Papua’s north coast, the

165THE KAMORO

Sultan also directed and sent raiding parties as far as Laka-hia Island. Letters of appointment were given to the rajas of Namatote and Aiduma, binding them to Tidore, thus in com-petition with the Seram traders. When the Russian explorer, Miklouho-Maclay visited Laka-

hia Island in 1874, he reported on a hongi-raid that had taken place some 25 years previously. All the huts and coconut trees were destroyed and about one hundred Papuans enslaved. !e rest of the terri#ed inhabitants $ed to settle on the mainland. Probably as a result of this raid, the Papuan inhabitants of the coast killed several dozen Muslim merchants and their crews. !e Russian was told that traders avoided much of the south-west Papuan coast to the west of Lakahia as they were usually assaulted and their boats plundered. Many of the local Papuans

As there are no in Kamoro-land roads, boys do not play with trucks, but instead with miniature canoes.


lived in fear as well, seldom establishing permanent villages. Further to the east of Etna Bay, conditions were more peaceful. Traders from Seram made yearly visits to the Kamoro village of Uta. In 1850, the Raja of Namatote appointed a ‘raja’ at the village of Kipia to facilitate trade there. He controlled a district called ‘Tarja’ that included the villages of Porauka in the west to Uta and Mupuruka in the east. !e Roman Catholic Church made an attempt in 1896 to bring

Christianity to the Kamoro. Father C. le Coq d’Armandville visited the area, but he either drowned or was killed. !en in 1910, a mission from the Kei Islands visited Kamoro-land but due to the problems presented by nature such as sandbank bar-riers, currents, di%culty in anchoring and landing, along with none-too-friendly Kamoro, it was decided that this was nei-

Men play their lizard skin drums inside a special house built for an initiation ritual at Iwaka Village.

167THE KAMORO

ther the time of place to begin missionary e"ort in this part of Papua. Around 1900 the fearsome Naowa of Kipia, leader of the west

Mimikan federation of the groups of Kipia, Porauka, Akar, Mapar and Wumuka, leading raids to the east, reached the Mimika River. !is ‘raja’ appointed by the Islamic trade-raja of Namatote, also raided westward-going folks from Central and East Mimika who were in search of textiles, iron-ware and ornaments. Many men and women and children were also captured and sold as slaves. Naowa long remained in popular imagination acquiring some mythical features. About this time that groups from Wania and Kamoro riv-

ers united with groups of the Koperapoka River waged war against the nearby and powerful Tipuka originating from fur-ther east. Land rights were perhaps the basic reason for this war, but it was triggered by accusations that the Timika folks had carelessly handled sacred masks so that women could see them. Tipuka lost the war and refugees as well as children of prisoners of war spread out over Central and West Mimika as far as Etna Bay. Life along the southwest coast of Papua became relatively

peaceful after the establishment of a Dutch post at Fakfak in 1898. Muslim traders lost most of their in$uence. Chinese and Indonesian bird of paradise hunters penetrated into Kamoro lands, bringing metal tools and red cloth as trade items or for payment of services. Chinese traders came for damar, massoy and sago, bringing in exchange axes, parangs, tobacco and betel nuts. !ey also brought in Chinese dishes and gongs that be-came important brideswealth items.


KAMORO MYTHSSometime after contact began with the outside world, Kam-oro myths and legends came to accommodate and incorporate foreigners and their cultural items. We are most fortunate in the fact that two Dutch missionary-linguists, Fathers Drabbe and Zegwaard, recorded many Kamoro myths. We do not have space here to go into depth into these legends, but there are some general comments that will be useful in understanding the Kamoro culture and psychology. As everywhere in the world, religion gives followers a measure

of psychological security, especially useful when facing illness, death and other human or natural disasters. Myths combine cosmological outlook with the fundamentals of religion. Many believe that the supernatural a"ects human lives, and this can at least be partially controlled through religion, bringing a de-gree of safety and assurance. Rituals often #nd their bases in myths, believed to be facts by the followers of any particular religion. !is holds true for the great worldwide monotheistic religions as well as the traditional ones. !e Kamoro believe that their cultural heroes, as their ad-

ventures are depicted in myths, created everyone on earth and everything on it. !is includes items such as motorboats, ri$es and cloth, that are to outsiders are very obviously not Kamoro inventions. !is also applies to the Dutch administration and the Christian religion. One widespread Kamoro myth concerns a dragon (or a

snake) that today is sometimes called a Komodo dragon. Per-haps it is based on an even larger lizard that died out in Aus-tralia perhaps some 20,000 years ago. Be that as it may, one

169THE KAMORO

particular dragon ate all humans except a pregnant woman. She gave birth to a son, Mbiro-koteyau, who eventually slew the dragon. After this feat, he cut open the dragon and its vari-ous parts became all the human races found on earth. !us all mankind originated thanks to a Kamoro cultural hero, and all races spread from Kamoro lands. !e ancestors of the Europeans, the Chinese and the Indo-

nesians left Kamoro-land to settle in the west. !is was also the case for many Kamoro male and female cultural heroes who traveled to the west, never to return. But their descendants eventually did come back to the area of their #rst ancestors, Kamoro-land. In another legend, an old man named Mapurupiu died. His

soul wanders in search of other souls, the land of the dead. As

A traditional ancestral pole carving bounces in the air at Kekwa Village. Called a ‘bitoro’, this large carving embodies the spirit of recently deceased important men.


he rested on his journey, he found a frog (in some versions also a snake) that made a canoe for him. In later versions of the same myth, the canoe was equipped with an outboard motor. !is is an example of how ‘modern’ inventions are incorpo-rated into old legends. Some authors have equated Mapurupiu with the biblical Adam, apparently the #rst human. Another interpretation holds Mapurupiu as an all-powerful God who punished mankind for their sins with death. In the original legend, Mapurupiu killed his own brother. !is was because his younger brother did not bother to ful#ll all his funerary obli-gations and married Mapurupiu’s widow far too soon. Many Kamoro, especially in the eastern and central areas, consider Mapurupiu as the ultimate cultural hero. Due to this, a monu-ment was erected in his honor in 2006, near the present-day village of Mware. Aside from discovering how to make canoes, the hero’s death and its aftermath laid down some of the rules of Kamoro life.

THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION BRING DRASTIC CHANGES!e greatest changes to the Kamoro life-style were brought about by the government post that opened in Kokonau in 1926, followed by the #rst Roman Catholic mission in 1927. Father Kowatzki was the #rst priest there. In 1934 he was joined by Father (later Bishop) Tillemans, a priest who traveled exten-sively and explored the area. It was during the year of Father Tillemans’ arrival that the #rst baptisms took place. Prior to the arrival of the mission and the Dutch government,

the Kamoro led a semi-nomadic life-style. !eir homes were

171THE KAMORO

very simple, a slanted thatch roof coming straight from the ground, with an open front that could be closed o". Fam-ilies lived together in a long row of these simple structures that could easily be moved. !ese traditional homes were called ‘kapiri kame’. !e word kapiri means pandanus leaves and ‘kame’ means house. Vil-lages were semi-permanent in that the Kamoro frequently moved between the coast where the best #shing was located, to upriver areas in-land where the staple sago and other food resources were found. Land rights, owned by di"erent clans, extended along various rivers. !e Kamoro moved periodi-

cally to take advantage of their food resources. But they gathered together in large groups for various rituals that took place relatively often. Elaborate struc-tures were built for these festivals and carvings were made by men with hereditary rights to do so. Nomadic people present an almost impossible task for ad-

ministrators and missions. So the Kamoro were persuaded or

A man wears a headdress made from the dried skin of a bird of paradise. Formerly, the feathers from these birds adorned ladies’ hats in the western world.


forced to settle in permanent villages. !ere had been earlier a move toward semi-permanent settlement at river mouths in order to trade with Chinese merchants. But these moves were entirely voluntary. In the new government-decreed vil-lages, the Kamoro had to build single-family houses, raised o" the ground, with walls of ‘gaba-gaba’ (the thick central stem of palm fronds) and a thatch roof. !e Kamoro quickly accepted the Roman Catholic faith, su-

per#cially at least. Most of the villages were sta"ed by teach-ers from the Kei Islands, the base of the Roman Catholic Church in its e"orts to proselytize the south coast of Papua. !ese teachers considered themselves superior to the Kamoro, and often treated them badly. !is state of a"airs was common with other groups living on the south coast where Kei teachers were also brought in by the church. Wearing a spirit mask, a man dances on the beach at Paripi Village. !e dance forms a part of a renewal ritual.

173THE KAMORO

Initially, the Kamoro were quite keen on having schools. !ey probably thought that they could enter the world of much-de-sired material goods through the schools. However, they soon realized that this was not the case, and that schools disrupted family life. Children, who used to travel with their parents when they went to make sago or seek other food resources, were not allowed to leave school. Of course, there was a great deal of absenteeism. By 1930, there were 24 semi-permanent settlements under

some degree of government control. In 1932, the Kamoro area held 21 schools, with some 2,100 students taught by 22 teach-ers. !e instruction focused on religion above all, and the need for order, regular attendance and hygiene. Subjects included the Malay (Indonesian) language, reading, writing and arith-metic. Few children progressed beyond the third grade. Between 1930 and 1937 a #erce competition took place for

Kamoro souls between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church of the Moluccas. On the ground, this trans-lated into a parallel system of schools and churches in the vil-lages, the Roman Catholic Kei teachers facing Protestant ones from Ambon. It was a wonderful time for the Kamoro who easily became ‘rice Christians’, following the religion that gave away more food, clothing, tobacco, metal tools or other items. For a while, the civilian administrator and the Indonesian po-lice favored the Protestants, giving them a measure of advan-tage to make up for their late start. However, the Catholics eventually prevailed and the Protestants withdrew from most of Kamoro-land due to a lack of su%cient #nances. !ey at-tempted again after World War II, but without success. Today,


all Kamoro follow the Catholic Church. All the Kamoro, that is within the boundaries of the Mimika kabupaten. !ree vil-lages to the west, Omba, Lakahia and Wari#, all in the Kaima-na kabupaten, are Protestant, too far from the mission center at Kokonau. While no one actually forbade the Kamoro from practicing

their traditional culture, it was certainly not encouraged by ei-ther the priests, the administrators and least of all by the Kei teachers. Some priests did show a $exible attitude toward tra-ditional rituals but not the Protestants. In the Etna Bay area, the Protestants even prohibited drumming and singing outside church services. All outsiders, including the government, ob-jected to the nose-piercing part of the initiation ritual, and this practice was largely dropped, although initiations and some other rituals continued. Aside from discouraging time spent away from villages (even

for obtaining food), making carvings and performing rituals were deemed a ‘waste of time’ by the outsiders. !e rich spiri-tual life of the traditional Kamoro religion was slowly aban-doned, in part at least. Today, only the boys’ initiation ceremo-ny is still regularly followed in most, but not all the villages, once very #ve or six years. But to what degree the Kamoro have assimilated Christianity is an open question. In 1961, Dr. Pouwer wrote that ‘Until now and after 36 years of accultura-tion, they have not accepted a modern attitude toward life nor the essence of Christian faith – although nearly everyone was baptized.’ !e presence of the government did bring at least one positive

change to the Kamoro. Previously, the Kamoro were subject to

175THE KAMORO

frequent Asmat headhunting raids. !ree of these were record-ed until police with #rearms combined with Kamoro warriors from Atuka and the Wania villages defeated and killed a large Asmat war party in May 1931.

WORLD WAR II AND ITS AFTERMATH!e arrival of Japanese troops on the south coast of Papua in 1942 put a stop to any Asmat-related activities. Eventu-ally, some 800 Japanese soldiers occupied parts of the Kamoro lands. A #ghter airstrip was built at Kekwa and the Japanese pushed out exploratory patrols as far as the Asmat area. Austra-lia forces at one time reached the Otakwa River before be-ing forced to retreat. Most of the land between Yapero and the south Asmat area became a non-man’s land, with neither side willing to commit much e"ort to control this area. At #rst, the Kamoro got

along well with the Japanese. However, soon the invaders needed food and the Kamoro were forced to plant large gar-dens. Reluctance to work was punished by beatings and even death. !ere are tales of Kam-A mask, called a ‘miikao’ is worn by a man during a Kamoro ritual. Only a very few men can still make this traditional spirit mask.


oro men tied on the beach at low tide and drowning slowly as the tide rose. !e Kamoro also su"ered from Allied bombings and were forced to witness the beheading of captured Allied pilots. !e war years also saw a marked increase in drunkenness from the consumption of palm wine. !e end of the war was a relief for the Kamoro. !ey participated in the hunting down and killing of isolated Japanese, under administrative encour-agement but also for revenge. !e end of the war saw intra-Kamoro #ghting in the western

part of Mimika, as well as a resurgence of rituals. Some west-ern Kamoro villages moved to Omba where, with villages from Etna Bay, an important nose-piercing ceremony took place. As part of the Dutch policy of self-determination, an e"ective

if uno%cial council was set up, including government o%cials and Roman Catholic personnel. !is council was responsible for the yearly scheduling of activities. !is included the alter-nation of traditional rituals, work and Christian celebrations. After 1954 this council was expanded to include some Kamoro as well as the Kei teachers. But the council plans for develop-ment did not register much success. However, it did expand the vision of some in$uential Kamoro leaders as well as that of some young men. Development proceeded slowly after the war years. Most of

the Kamoro lived in a subsistence economy, with some pos-sibilities for paid employment with the Dutch oil company in Sorong. At the village level, occasional Chinese traders arrived to exchange goods like tobacco and tools for crocodile skins, ironwood, and massoy. A ship run by the Roman Catholic Church plied the coastal villages on a regular basis, purchasing

177THE KAMORO

copra (dried coconuts) and bringing essential goods at rela-tively low prices. !e decades between 1960 and 1970 saw the change from

Dutch control of Papua to that of Indonesia. !e Kamoro accepted this and there were no great upheavals. Small-scale commerce, run by the Chinese, passed into the hands of the Bugis from South Sulawesi. A large-scale migration took place by the mountain Amungme to an area called Agimuga, located east of the edge of Kamoro/Sempan lands. Dr. Jan Pouwer has traced the Kamoro attitude toward outsid-

ers as an evolving phenomenon. At #rst, foreigners were often received with hostility, to the point of killing some of them. We do not know the reasons for this, as all of our descriptions of these ‘murders’ were written by those who su"ered but survived

Men arrive in canoes while splashing water with their paddles, showing their exuberance. New canoes are built for a ritual of the renewal of life.


the aggression. !ere are no Kamoro accounts as to why they killed outsiders. Perhaps it was to revenge a previous kidnap-ping, or cutting precious coconut trees without permission. During the next phase of contacts, the Kamoro became far

friendlier and more obliging, as they sought very much-de-sired modern goods such as metal tools, clothing and tobacco. During this time, the western part of the Mimika area became the focus of exchanges, as outside merchants were reluctant to travel further east. Pouwer records the exchange of the skull of a relative for a handkerchief to show the degree of Kamoro desire for material goods from the outside world. It is likely that this desire for outside goods contributed to

the Kamoro acceptance of the Dutch government, the Roman Catholic Church and the schools. However, it soon became evident to the Kamoro that it did not become much easier to acquire modern goods. !e acceptance of outsider’s control meant that there was drastic disruption of the traditional Ka-moro life-style, as we have seen above. And there were taxes to pay, and forced labor for projects such as making gardens, mostly for the bene#t of outsiders. !ese factors led to disen-chantment along with passive resistance and a degree of res-ignation. !is passivity led to outsiders’ belief that the Kamoro cul-

ture and spirit had vanished. !e bleakest assessment of the Kamoro comes from Father Trenkenschuh: ‘Mimika strikes a person as a dead area #lled with zombies. !ere is no work and no interest in work. Religion of the past is no longer celebrated and the Christian religion means nothing to the people. !e past is gone forever. !e present lacks vitality. !e future holds

179THE KAMORO

no hope. … !is is a society without any pride in itself, and one which totally lacks any sense of excitement and enjoyment of life. … Infant mortality is still over 80 per cent and Mimika is #lled with underfed and sick people. … It has been almost 40 years since any local Mimikan feasts have been spontaneously celebrated.... By 1970 almost all local art had disappeared and all artists are old men. … !e three successive governments and the missions have failed in every e"ort to promote any development in the Mimika area. … It was di%cult for the mission to keep missionaries interested in the people and the area. From 1959 to 1969, East Mimika had 13 di"erent pas-tors. !e people never had a chance to know and trust the mis-sionary…’. While some elements of this most negative assessment might

be true, it presents a very distorted picture of the situation of the Kamoro. !e missionary priests, the pioneer proselytizers of the Asmat, saw what Europeans considered a most ‘exotic’ culture practicing headhunting, cannibalism, impressive cere-monies and ritual sex. By contrast, the Kamoro were a boring, tame lot, having passively accepted Christianity and given up some elements of their traditional life-style 30 years previously. And the Roman Catholic Church had evolved considerably in regards to just what was ‘acceptable’ in traditional cultures. Of course, the Kamoro su"ered from being contrasted with the Asmat in the eyes of the missionaries and the world, taken with the dynamic, ‘exotic’ Asmat.

FREEPORT AND THE KAMORO!e mining company Freeport Indonesia arrived among the


Kamoro to begin its infrastructure work at the very end of the 1960s. Some Kamoro were hired during this initial phase for various jobs. And the company port of Amamapare attracted many Kamoro who lived (and still live) on the nearby island of Keraka. !e port, as well as the road leading to the moun-tains, (to the mine site in the highlands), were all built on Kamoro-owned traditional lands. !ere were bene#ts for the local Kamoro in free health services, providing a market for #sh and mangrove crabs, as well in work opportunities. Later, a company-#nanced long-term multi-million dollar program compensated the local Kamoro, for a part of their territory that had been taken over for the port, the road and the tailings de-position area. Still-practiced Kamoro rituals required the skills of heredi-

tary carvers for the making of the ‘mbitoro’, a winged totem-like pole with carvings of decently deceased important men. !e carvers also continued to make drums. !e arrival of Free-port workers produced a market for Kamoro carvings, unfortu-nately of the cheapest, low-quality variety. Later however, the company began commissioning large carvings and decorations for its buildings and for public display. Beginning in the late 1990s, Freeport sponsored a series of large-scale Kamoro festi-vals where carvers had the opportunity to sell their production at excellent prices. !ese festivals helped the Kamoro to regain a degree of pride in their traditional culture. Unfortunately, these festivals stopped after a few years due to unreasonably increased costs demanded by the Kamoro organizing commit-tees. After the termination of the large-scale festival, Freeport be-

181THE KAMORO

gan a program of purchasing carvings in the various Kam-oro villages and holding a se-ries of expositions in Jakarta and Bali. During these expo-sitions, many carvings were sold, with the sale price going directly to the carvers. Small groups of Kamoro traveled to each of these events, holding carving demonstrations, along with chanting and playing of their drums. !e public’s ap-preciation of these manifes-tations of Kamoro traditions helped to restore a degree of pride in their culture. Aside from encouraging carv-

ing, various Freeport programs have helped the Kamoro in di"erent ways. Most of these programs were speci#cally di-rected to the Kamoro whose lands were used by the mining company. !ey bene#ted disproportionately from Freeport lar-gess, but some bene#ts also reached the Kamoro living further away. !ese bene#ts include near-free top-notch health care in an excellent hospital, educational and economic development programs. A company-#nanced organization (LEMASA, or Lembaga

A large ancestral carving gracing the entrance of the Rimba hotel in Timika was commissionned by Freeport. Company programs encourage the Kamoro culture, especially their carving traditions.


Masyarakat Kamoro), run by Kamoro leaders, disburses funds for various necessities such as returning the bodies of the de-ceased to their home villages from Timika. But internal cor-ruption has been a brake on its e%ciency. Another organization (LPMAK, or Lembaga Pembangunan Masyarakat Amungme Kamoro), mostly run by Papuans, disburses a special fund from Freeport that amounts to one per cent of the company’s yearly gross revenues. !e organization supports religious, education-al and economic development activities. Although seven tribal groups now living in the Timika area use the LPMAK funds, a disproportionate amount goes to Kamoro (and Amungme) activities, as due to the area’s traditional landowners.

KAMORO SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONTraditional Kamoro society was based on residency. Although kinship relations played a part, the most important factor as to one’s allegiance was to the settlement where one lived. !ese named settlements were located on rivers that were controlled by the group. !ey owned sago #elds, along with exclusive #sh-ing, hunting and gathering rights. Once the semi-permanent settlements became #xed by government decree, they became (semi) permanent villages. In the early 1950s, Jan Pouwer listed 31 villages. Today there are over 40. A number of villages have combined or split apart, with some of the population moving to other settlements. !e total population in the 1950s was around 8,600, while

today it is twice that number or more. !is is partially due to natural increase, but more importantly, due to better health facilities. While one source gives child deaths at 80 per cent

183THE KAMORO

and another at 30 per cent, this has de#nitely decreased at the present. Pre-natal care, especially in the vicinity of Timika and Kokonau, probably play a part as well. Traditional Kamoro society had many elements of a matri-

archy. Marriages required the groom’s working at least for a time with the bride’s family. Sisters’ and daughters’ husbands had important functions in economic, social and religious mat-ters. But they were considered inferior to their wives’ male rela-tives. Related women belonging to one generation were grouped

into units called ‘paraeko’. !ey owned land rights as well as control of canoes and other property. But these matrilineal groups did not distinguish themselves by clear ancestor lines, but by living together. !us the community was centered on a group of ‘paraeko’ sisters, along with their husbands and male relatives. !e ‘paraeko’ of various generations made up groups called ‘taparu’. Most villages were made up of two to #ve taparu. Pouwer recorded the names of 160 ‘taparu’. He also found 47 ‘tribes’ in the sense of groups of semi-permanent settlements, having their own name, territory and a feeling of a shared com-munity. Genealogies did not go back far in time, and are vague. New members of a community, once they lived there long enough, were wholly integrated and called by kinship terms. Under the Dutch and Indonesian governments as well as

the Roman Catholic Church, the traditional matriarchy has evolved into patriarchy. Wives today tend to live in their hus-bands’ villages and inheritance tends to follow the male line, although women still have a measure of control over some sago ground.


QUESTIONS1. Why are the Kamoro quite well known today? 2. Why did trade with the outside world not reach most of the Kamoro? 3. What were the main changes the Kamoro had to make when the Dutch gov-ernment and the Roman Catholic mission began their administration? 4. Why do you think that Kamoro myths accounted for the origins of mankind and all the material goods?5. Why did negative opinions exist about the Kamoro during the post-war years? 6. What were the advantages of the Freeport mine to the Kamoro?

The South Coast of Papua

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